WTO stalled by farm and goods
Sunday, May 27, 2007
THE World Trade Organisation's Doha Round negotiations on cutting barriers to global commerce appeared in serious trouble yesterday as talks on the key farm and goods tariff dossiers were reported in blockage.
Only hours after a gloomy account emerged of industrial goods discussions over the past week, the chairman of the effort to shape a farm trade pact said there were still big gaps between countries with little movement on central issues.
"Too many variables ... with positions too wide apart" for any compromise to be in sight, and "scarcely anywhere in negotiating terms" were how the chairman, New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer, summed up aspects of the talks.
On Friday, the ambassador steering the goods talks Canada's envoy Don Stephenson voiced similar frustration, as trade sources said days of discussion had shown no sign of closing the huge gap between developed and developing countries.
Stephenson, according to the sources, told negotiators he no longer wanted to hear them simply repeating their positions when a new session on goods tariffs starts on June 4. "I already know them (the positions). They haunt me," he declared. Both chairmen are due to present in July a formal draft text for a final agreement in the two cornerstone areas, to provide a basis for an effort, which will go up to ministerial level, to try to rescue the overall round.
"Things are looking rather gloomy all over at this stage," said one source close to the negotiations, launched in Doha, Qatar, at the end of 2001 and originally set to wrap up by the end of 2005.
Farm talks are due to resume next Wednesday, and Falconer's comments issued by the WTO on Saturday came in a 15-page paper setting out "challenges" on where positions might converge and how this might be achieved. Reuters
Only hours after a gloomy account emerged of industrial goods discussions over the past week, the chairman of the effort to shape a farm trade pact said there were still big gaps between countries with little movement on central issues.
"Too many variables ... with positions too wide apart" for any compromise to be in sight, and "scarcely anywhere in negotiating terms" were how the chairman, New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer, summed up aspects of the talks.
On Friday, the ambassador steering the goods talks Canada's envoy Don Stephenson voiced similar frustration, as trade sources said days of discussion had shown no sign of closing the huge gap between developed and developing countries.
Stephenson, according to the sources, told negotiators he no longer wanted to hear them simply repeating their positions when a new session on goods tariffs starts on June 4. "I already know them (the positions). They haunt me," he declared. Both chairmen are due to present in July a formal draft text for a final agreement in the two cornerstone areas, to provide a basis for an effort, which will go up to ministerial level, to try to rescue the overall round.
"Things are looking rather gloomy all over at this stage," said one source close to the negotiations, launched in Doha, Qatar, at the end of 2001 and originally set to wrap up by the end of 2005.
Farm talks are due to resume next Wednesday, and Falconer's comments issued by the WTO on Saturday came in a 15-page paper setting out "challenges" on where positions might converge and how this might be achieved. Reuters
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